From a New York Times piece by pollster Nate Silver.

Media Distrust May Shield Cain From the Right’s Critiques

Do political scandals sting less than they used to?

Maybe — since unless you’re as careless as Anthony D. Weiner, the accumulations of the details of these scandals need to be reported by someone. And when that someone is the mainstream media, many voters will not trust them.

I took a tally of reaction in conservative blogs today to the allegations, originally revealed by a team of Politico reporters, that Herman Cain had been accused of sexual harassment on two occasions during the 1990s and had settled the cases out of court.

The conservative blogs that I counted were those that had been linked to on Memorandum, an aggregation website, either Monday night or earlier that day.

I then classified the reactions as being either basically sympathetic to Mr. Cain, unsympathetic to Mr. Cain, or fairly neutral and adopting more of a wait-and-see approach. There were 46 conservative journalists or bloggers who wrote in enough detail about the allegations to allow me to characterize them in this way. (You can see the way I classified each individual blogger here — there were certainly a few debatable calls.)

Overall, the reactions were quite sympathetic. I counted 23 bloggers who either defended Mr. Cain or harshly critiqued the reporting in the story. There were just 6 bloggers, meanwhile, who took a largely unsympathetic position toward Mr. Cain.

Now Nate Silver is one of the best pollsters out there, that has been clearly demonstrated.

But let’s look at this instead, especially since it is not exactly a random poll, as a piece of journalism, which might imply the idea of reporting.

From that point of view, it is a fascinating and compelling insight into the total vapidity to which the NYTimes and the corporate controlled mainsteam media have now stooped / fallen / declined / decayed.

They do not report the facts of the story. They go and do a fair and balanced analysis of whatever random thoughts pop into the heads of an uninformed and ignorant populace. Or in this case, a survey of those most likely to believe whatever they want, while totally ignoring facts and reality that might not fit their predetermined world view from the Right. All tied into a neat package aimed at manipulating the weak willed and ignorant. They support the key play book of the GOP, Faux Noise Nutwork, and the puppet masters of the 1% and the corporations.

They have done such an excellent job using these techniques on Global Warming and Anthropogenic Climate Change that only in the past couple of weeks have the facts managed to get past the smoke screen of even the most well-paid deniers.

Well done. I am sure they get your paychecks, and that is all that matters to Them.

Thomas Jefferson, where are you when we need you?

The Fourth Estate is collapsing into a smoking, crumbling, decaying ruin as the fourth pillar of the American dream of Democracy.